This review of the past year, month by month, started with January, found here. A guest post by Cecil Canton toward the beginning of the month describes the “cultural taxation” faced by faculty from underrepresented groups, “a way to describe the unique burden placed on ethnic minority faculty in carrying out our responsibility for service…
I received permission from Gregory Scholtz, Director, A.A.U.P. Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, to release this letter: December 30, 2014 Dr. Phyllis Wise Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Swanlund Administration Building 601 East John Street Champaign, Illinois 61820 Dear Chancellor Wise: The approval and December 23 release by the UIUC Senate Committee…
This is a chart from the Federal Reserve Board in New York representing household debt in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2014: Over the last decade, student debt has clearly increased both in raw dollars and as a percentage of household debt. The implications of that increase have, however, been much less clear…
One of the first contributions to the Academe blog this year was Hank Reichman’s “How NOT to Oppose the Academic Boycott of Israel.” He wrote: Clearly, college and university presidents have the right to speak out on issues of public concern, especially as these relate to higher education. And while their statements may or may not represent…
Reported on WUIS: I received the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure’s report this morning, and I thank them for their time and effort. I have read the report. It contains a great deal of information, and it is important that I thoroughly review it and discuss the findings and recommendations with the authors, the…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 370,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 16 days for that many people to see…
A source has subsequently clarified in an e-mail the status of the resolution. This update reflects a more accurate depiction of the process. Ten University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign senators have courageously co-sponsored a resolution that represents a stirring affirmation of AAUP documents and basic principles of academic freedom and shared governance. The UIUC Senate Executive Committee…
The Student Monitor survey for Fall 2014 is the result of a detailed questionnaire completed by a representative sample of 1200 students. It includes all sorts of data, largely related to the students’ purchases of digital devices and uses of digital technologies and media. I find the following chart of college students’ print or digital…
Education “reformers,” in an attempt to save the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), are now attempting to decouple “standards” and “high-stakes testing.” In an op-ed in The New York Times today, for example, David Kirp, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, writes: Although the Obama administration didn’t craft the standards, it weighed in heavily, using some of…
In my previous post, I discussed James McNair’s article on the proposed multi-million-dollar gift by Koch Foundation and Poppa John’s CEO John Schnatter to the University of Louisville [http://kycir.org/2014/12/09/university-of-louisville-set-to-get-millions-from-charles-koch-foundation-and-papa-johns-ceo/]. That article includes the following paragraph: “The Koch-Schnatter gift would not be the first to expand free-markets instruction at the University of Louisville. Six years ago,…